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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 5966952" data-attributes="member: 8461">I honestly wouldn't even recognize a game played like this as being D&D. Spellcasters absolutely run out of spells above and beyond level 5. My 8th-level spellcasters did in last night's game, across seven encounters altogether.I'm not sure if you're looking at some magic items (rings of wizardry, perhaps?) that allow for more spells per day, but on bonus slots via high ability scores, eight or more spells of each spell level per day (for a wizard) is, quite simply, insane. I'm sure there's some sort of CharOp build for it, but there's a CharOp build for Pun-Pun too, which is my way of saying I don't find such material to (as I've said before) be very relevant at the game table. I won't even mention the idea of an infinite number of wands.Likewise, if you're going to say "if you're not doing it min-maxed, you're doing it wrong," then there's going to be very little left to discuss. I'm trying to say that such theorizing about power-builds doesn't mesh with actual game-play; to say that means the game is being played wrong is to take the idea of the game over the game itself, and I can't believe that anyone would do that.See above for my response to "played correctly" versus "played incorrectly." It's an ironic truism that only bad players tell others that they're having BadWrongFun.Likewise, I've already spoken to the idea that wizards are always better than fighters because wizards can control the entire battlefield. That's only true under hypothetical scenarios which are designed specifically to support such a position.This is more theorizing that ignores how things actually play out - the little details that somehow never make it into these scenarios - when you sit down and actually play the game.Grease, for example, covers a 10-ft. square, so you're always adjacent to the edge of it. It's one easy check to move out of the area, and so eats up five, maybe ten feet of the enemies' movement...presuming they aren't flying, that it isn't an aquatic area, that they don't just do around it, or jump over it, or burrow under it, etc. The idea that "you can destroy a lower-level encounter with a single spell" is a myth that doesn't exist outside of the aforementioned theory-crafters' pet scenarios. Again, this doesn't hold up to closer scrutiny. Even leaving aside the incredibly short duration of this spell, and that the spellcaster needs a full round (not just a full-round action) to cast it, a celestial dog has 6 hit points, which means that even a first-level fighter has it beat in terms of lasting in combat (not that it can anyway, with it's poor duration). It's also one protection from good away from being unable to attack a given foe.The idea that a summoned monster can simply replace the party fighter outright is, quite simply, misguided unless you're looking at a very specific scenario for very specific parameters for a very short period of time.Untrue. See above.Ranged weaponry. Magic items. The list here goes on and on. If we're talking about tripping, then without his non-reach weapon, he can still trip just as many possible squares as he could before. If you're referring to making trip attacks of opportunity, that's as easy as Improved Unarmed Strike or even a spiked gauntlet.You're not making sense here. A Medium-sized fighter reduced to Small-size has the same reach as he did before. Likewise, my point from before was that the overall difference from better armor (hitting less of the time for average damage) versus a damage penalty (hitting an average amount of time for less damage) being equalized on a scale wasn't moot - you simply didn't understand that it's a way of showing how damage penalties are no more effective than a higher AC.See, this is where the theory-crafting goes completely off the rails. Characters aren't "forced to specialize" in anything except very broad terms (e.g. multiclassing can make it harder to excel in a given area). A fighter that has a trip weapon and Improved Trip can still hit things for damage.Leaving aside the "easy to ascertain" bit (which is another way of saying that you'll have metagame knowledge about what opponents you're facing), this still presumes that you have a perfect choice of spells available and that the dice will go your way much more often than not. I've been trying to tell you for a while now that this isn't always so, and quite a few times it's only rarely so.</blockquote>

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